A Pattern of Lies: A Bess Crawford Mystery by Charles Todd

                For months I have waited for this newest Bess Crawford Mystery to come out.  I had to see if the war was going to end and, of course, if Simon and Bess were finally going to get together.  Here’s where I ruin some things.  The answer is no on both fronts.  However, both do seem to be getting closer, especially the end of the war.  As for Simon and Bess, there’s a hint of their relationship moving forward, but nothing definite.  Maybe it will happen in the next book.

                World War I Army nurse Bess Crawford is trying to go home to visit her family for a bit, but her train ends up delayed.  Not wanting to spend an unknown amount of time standing around the station, Bess decides to wander around the town.  It is there she runs into an old patient of hers, Major Mark Ashton.  He was severely wounded in battle and spent quite a bit of time under Bess’s and the other nurses’ care.  His mother also came to the site and stayed with her son until he was ready to return home, befriending the nurses along the way. 

                When Bess and Major Ashton run into each other, Major Ashton is certain his mother will want to see Bess once again.  He offers Bess a room for the night at his family home which Bess eagerly accepts.  There is not any guarantee there will be a train she can catch until the next day, and spending the night at a trusted individual’s home is much preferable to staying at the station or an unknown hotel.  What Bess doesn’t realize is that when she agreed to go to Major Ashton’s home that she was walking into danger.

                Unbeknownst to Bess, Major Ashton and his family are in a fight with the village of which they live.  Two years previous, a gun powder mill owned by Major Ashton’s father exploded.  Numerous men died.  The Army declared the explosion an accident, but recently rumors have been floating around declaring otherwise.  Now the villagers have turned against the Ashtons.  The animosity began small, but now it has grown to the point that someone tries to burn down the Ashtons’ house while they are sleeping.  If Bess hadn’t happened to wake up, whoever the culprit is may have been successful.  With these types of events occurring, it would make sense to go to the police, but they refuse to listen.  They have already arrested Major Ashton’s father with the charge of murdering the men who died in the explosion.  No matter what the Ashtons do or say will make any difference.  The minds of the police are made up.  There is only one hope for the Ashtons and that is for the sole witness to the explosion to come forward.  The problem is, the witness, Sergeant Rollins, is fighting on the front.  He is needed there and the Army will not let him return home to testify.  Upon hearing this, Bess becomes determined to find Sergeant Rollins and get his story, never imagining the consequences that will come.

                I felt so badly for Bess throughout this book.  With each leave she received, even though they were very short, she kept trying to go home to see her family.  Then each and every time the Ashton situation called her away.  Sometimes the Ashtons themselves asked her to come, making Bess’s time with her own family mostly non-existent.  When Bess was on the job, the Ashtons took up her time there too.  She spent a lot of time while working trying to find Sergeant Rollins.  While she never performed her job poorly, she did get some questions from her superiors about why things were taking so long to get done.  Then there was the attempt on Bess’s life (which did not go over well with family friend Sergeant Major Simon Brandon when he heard the news).  Only a switching of rooms protected Bess from the attack another nurse experienced, but it was clear that someone didn’t want Bess investigating.  Unfortunately, not everyone was as lucky as Bess was.  Others did lose their lives and who knows how many more would have had Bess not figured everything out when she did.      

                This book didn't take me even twenty-four hours to read.  That's how much I enjoyed it.  Now all I can do is wait for the next one to come out.  I don’t know when that will be, but I would not be surprised if I had to wait almost a full year.  This book was released not long ago and I expect it will take awhile for the next one to be published.  For all I know it may not even be fully written.  If it is, however, an earlier release would be fine with me.